Number 2072: Flash and the Spider-Men of Mars

A couple of months ago I showed a Golden Age Green Lantern story, and got the Earth One and Earth Two stuff mixed up. The original Flash and Green Lantern are from Earth Two. correct? I was a kid in 1961, standing at the comic book spinner holding Flash #123 with trembling hands, gawking at both versions of the Flash, Golden and Silver Age, together on the cover. Considering how important “Flash of Two Worlds” became in retrospect, I should know my DC Comics 101: Earth Two=Golden Age, Earth One=Silver Age.

In this tale from Flash Comics #24 (1941), the Flash, Jay Garrick, races to catch up to a spaceship heading for Mars with “healthy families” kidnapped to set up a Mars colony. The story gets screwier from there. Gardner Fox, who wrote it, went on to become one of the most revered comic book writers of the Silver Age, but “The Spider-Men of Mars” seems more of a fever dream than a story.

Artwork by E (for Everett) E. Hibbard.

From a Pappy’s posting in 2011, a two-part 1947 Flash story. Just click on the thumbnail.

Posted in: Pappy Comics